“There always have been two classes and there always will be two classes. We can’t all be bosses.” It was a law of nature. And he considered his performances more creditable than those of his masters.
“These directors,” he would say, “they were born into the business. They’ve stayed where they was put; they haven’t gone up and they haven’t gone down. But I—I started as a packer and I’m now head of the trade department; and look you here, Jones,” he would suddenly bellow out, “if you hammer nails into a box at that rate you’ll not only not be head of a trade department, you’ll blooming soon cease to be a packer!”
It was natural that Mr. Stevens should, from his previous experience of Gerald and certain other young gentlemen, regard Roland as an agreeable trifler on the fringe of important matters.
“Well, well, sir, so you’ve come along to see how we do things down here. I expect we shall be able to show you a thing or two. Now, if you was to go and sit over in that corner you’d be out of the way and you’d be able to see the business going on.”
“I daresay, Mr. Stevens, but that won’t help me very far, will it?”
“I wouldn’t say that, sir; nothing like seeing how the machinery works.”
“But I might as well go and ask an engine driver how a train worked and then be told to sit in a corner of the platform at a railway station and watch the trains go by. I should see how they worked but I shouldn’t know much about them.”
Mr. Stevens chuckled and scratched the bald patch on his head appreciatively.
“You see, Mr. Stevens,” Roland continued, “I don’t know anything about this show at all and I know that you’re the only person in the place who can help me.”
It was a lucky shot. Roland was not then the psychologist that he was to become in the days of his power. He worked by intuition. What he had intended for a graceful compliment was a direct appeal to Mr. Stevens’ vanity, at the point where it was most susceptible to such an assault. It was a grief at times to Mr. Stevens that the authorities should regard him as little more than a useful servant, who carried out efficiently the orders that they gave him. Mr. Stevens was not ambitious; the firm had treated him fairly, had recognized his talents early and had promoted him. He had no quarrel with the firm, but he knew—what no one else in the building, with the possible exception of Perkins, the general manager, did know—that for a long time he had ceased to carry out to the letter the instructions that had been given him, and that Mr. Marston had only a general knowledge of a department that he himself knew intimately. He had arranged numerous small improvements of which Mr. Marston was ignorant, and had exploited highly profitable exchanges of material with other dealers. Mr. Marston may have perhaps noticed in the general accounts a gradual fall in packing expenses, but if he had he had attributed it, without much thought, to the increased facilities for obtaining wood and cardboard. He did not know that as the result of most delicate maneuvering and an intricate system of exchange conducted by Mr. Stevens his firm was being supplied with cardboard at the actual cost price.